What's in a name
by mentosmorii
Summary: As Butler waits to hear back about how Artemis is doing in Haven with Dr. Argon, Juliet moves back to the manor. A character study into Juliet with a side of Butler-Fowl family dynamics.


Juliet Butler was used to sharing. The weight of her last name. Her brother. Her space within the manor. It seemed that just by being born at _this_ time, within _this_ family, she was expected to follow a certain path in life that was so far tangled up in the Fowls as to not really be hers at all.

It didn't surprise her brother when she sat him down at age 18 and told him she was going to try a crack at something new in America with the wrestling circuit, but it did surprise him when she came back a mere three years later. It was shortly after when Artemis checked into the psychiatrist in Haven — she had come to the clinic with Butler and Artemis, and she took the shuttle back to the manor with Butler.

Butler didn't want to say anything too pointed. They'd have to talk about if she was here to stay for good eventually, but she had just gotten back; he knew that she was proud enough that she'd pack her bags again if she felt he was suggesting her experiment in the U.S. with carving her own path had failed.

So they didn't talk about it. They both went on, carefully watching each other as they circled around the elephant in the room.

It had been a week since she arrived at the manor, and it looked like they could avoid the subject altogether if they tried hard enough. Their patterns during the day were certainly different enough that they could rely on their interactions being brief enough to make having a conversation about what Juliet was going to do easy to sidestep.

He was _far_ busy enough trying to explain to Mrs. Fowl why her son was staying with a psychologist a few thousand kilometers under the earth's surface. Neither the mental health conversation nor the magic conversation was going particularly well, he winced. Of course, Mr. Fowl was significantly out of the loop, but he'd never really been _in_ any loop regarding his son. At least with Myles and Beckett, he could trust that Juliet was enough of a distraction from Artemis' second leave of the family. Both the boys had noticed, of course, that their brother was gone again, but they were too dazzled by the _newness_ of Juliet to ask either their mother or him about where Artemis was.

Butler leaned back in his chair, looking out of his room's window at the sunlight. The clouds had cleared for the first time in a while, and the Fowl estate sprawled out across the surrounding acres of land. The wing that his room was in faced the old forest on the grounds, and he could just about make out the distant scene of Juliet and the boys by the pond at the edge of the trees. Juliet appeared to be allowing Becket to sit on her shoulders while Myles sat on the grass and looked at the water.

He smiled to himself, feeling the lines under his eyes crease upwards. From a distance, she could have been their older sister. Pulling his eyes away from the glass, he glanced back at the inside of the room. He sighed. Rolling his shoulders, he reached for the book he'd set down on his coffee table last night.

—

The manor was quiet. Juliet paused at the bottom of the staircase, hand ghosting over the handrail. If she looked close enough, she could make out the scuffs that Artemis and her brother weren't quite able to get out of the wall after the troll wrecked the hallway during the hostage situation. She exhaled slightly, a grin quirking the sides of her mouth upwards as she imagined Artemis getting snippy over her usage of 'hostage situation'. "Please, Juliet," she remembered him sighing a while back. "It's rude to leave out the _nuance_ of it all like that".

She tightened her grip on the banister. Slowly, Juliet made her way up towards her room.

—

There was a knock on the door. Butler set his book on his lap.

"Come in," he called out, fully prepared to see Angeline.

The door opened cautiously, and there was Juliet, her hand lingering on the doorknob.

"Hey," she scuffed her feet against the carpet. Butler blinked.

"Er, hi,"

They both stood there, self-consciously waiting for the other to say something.

"I took the twins outside."

"I saw. They seemed to have a good time."

Juliet shrugged, finally walking all the way in to the room. Letting the door close slowly behind her, she sat down gently on the edge of his bed. "Yeah, I guess. They like the pond. I remember liking getting into whatever was muddiest on the property when I was their age."

He grinned. Butler remembered taking Juliet outside to run before dark when she was young — she'd always had a wild child energy to her.

"Beckett reminds me of you," he smiled. "He's very determined to find trouble _somewhere_ on the grounds I've worked so hard at child-proofing."

Juliet rolled her eyes. "They're both troublemakers,"

"True," Butler laughed, leaning back in his chair. Juliet grinned. She stretched slightly, flopping back onto the bed.

"It's weird being back," she sighed. "Like, I'm back in my old room, and what's still up on the wall? The _Spice Girls_ poster I had when I was, what, eight? It's like a time capsule I don't even want."

"I'm sure most twenty-somethings coming back from university feel the same way about seeing the stuff they plastered up all over their room when they were younger," he chuckled softly.

At that, she sat back up to look at him, putting her weight on her right arm. "I'm not most twenty-somethings, though. I didn't even go to uni—"

Butler scrunched his face up in confusion. "Do you even want to go to uni?"

Juliet groaned, gripping the duvet in annoyance. "I don't _know_ if I want to go to uni, that's the thing! I _thought_ I wanted to go to America, be a wrestler, but then _something _happened with Artemis. And, a-and I was sitting in the hospital cafeteria with Mulch, and you know what I realized? I'd tried professional wrestling, and now I was _bored!_ I love wrestling! I love my teammates! I love traveling and seeing new people, and getting to be _Juliet_ instead of Juliet _Butler_. But I still woke up each day loving the gig a little less than I did the night before, and I can't live like that. You know that, Dom."

Juliet's eyes were shining, and she loosened her grip on the bed sheets. Butler set his book down gently on the floor. Standing slowly, his knees cursing him, he moved to sit next to her.

"I missed you," he said simply. "I'm sorry about America."

She reached over, putting her hand on his shoulder. "I missed you, too."

"I want you to know that you can stay as long as you need. I can also help you find an apartment nearby if what you need to is to be here without being _here_, if that makes sense,"

Juliet let out a small grin, retracting her hand from his shoulder to rub the wetness from her eyes. "I like my old room, but thanks,"

She grabbed a pillow, holding it on her lap and looking up at the ceiling pensively. "I don't want to just be a Butler for Myles and Beckett, though. That's never going to be me, I know that."

"I know. I think the Fowls know that, too."

Juliet nodded earnestly. "Cool. That's good."

"Thank you for talking to me about this, by the way," Butler sighed, looking at her.

"I don't care what happens — at the end of the day, I'm still your older brother. I want you to let me in when you're hurting—" Juliet scoffed, but he continued. "I _know_ you're not a child anymore, I know that! But I hate the idea of you feeling as though you have to go it alone because you need to prove something to the world," he finished, eyes pleading.

The two of them sat in silence, the sound of birds outside filtering into the room the only noise in the room. Finally, Juliet sighed, leveling her gaze on him.

"Okay."

He started. "O-okay?"

She snorted, throwing her pillow at him. "Yeah, _okay_, nerd. I'll keep you in the loop."

Butler caught the pillow, laughing incredulously. "Okay!"

Suddenly, Juliet's eyes widened. "I still have to tell my manager that I'm dropping out, _shit_"

Butler stared at her. "You didn't tell him?"

She waved a hand dismissively. "I think he knows, considering it's been, what, a couple of weeks by now? But after you showed up," she jabbed him with a finger pointedly. "I was so caught up in whatever end-of-the-world business Artemis had gotten us caught up in that I never gave my 'official' two-weeks notice, or whatever."

Butler sat there in silence for a moment, thinking. "I… don't think you should call him, actually,"

"Me neither,"

"I think he's going to be pissed,"

"Wow, really? Because _I_ think he'll be psyched one of the best acts in the group just _dropped out_ without letting him know. Dom, _obviously_ I'm gonna get yelled at by him if I so much as look at my phone."

A side of Butler's mouth quirked upwards. "One of the best acts?"

Juliet sniffed. "I was being humble. I'm a Butler, it's clear I'm _the _best."

At that, he laughed, and she shoved him. "Shut up! I am going to let him know eventually. I'm telling Sam that I'm not rejoining the troupe tonight—"

"Sam?" Butler frowned, and Juliet stuck her tongue out at him.

"Don't be annoying. She's my _teammate_. You saw her and I sparring before you dragged me off to Haven. We're scheduled for matches together, so she, out of everybody, deserves to know first about my decision," she chided.

"I wasn't prying!" Butler said defensively.

"Fiiiine, you weren't prying," Juliet teased. Butler rolled his eyes.

"So, she's your teammate. That's nice! I'm glad you have friends in the troupe," Butler tossed the pillow back to its original place on his bed.

"Yeah, it is nice. She's cool, you'd like her. It's… stupid, but I already kind of miss her," Juliet's tone softened. Butler's eyes widened slightly. _Oh_.

"You could ask her to visit sometime, if you'd like," he offered, trying to be nonchalant.

Juliet hummed. "Maybe. I'll see how things go tonight with her."

With that, she stood up from the bed. "I'm going to get ready for dinner. I think we've had enough awkward sibling heart-to-heart conversations for today," she grinned, and Butler knew that eventually, things would be okay. Maybe they wouldn't go back to normal, but that was okay. He had his sister back.

Pausing at the door, Juliet turned to face him. "It's nice to be back home with you, Dom,"

He smiled. "Love you, too, Jules"

Juliet grinned, closing the door after her, and Butler was left alone. The sun was starting to get low in the sky, and the light cast shadows across his room.

He picked up his book again, running his fingers down the spine to stop at the name of the author. _Violet_ _Tsirblou. _The book was, in all honesty, quite bad. The dialogue was awkward, the plot stilted, and the characters alien-feeling. Butler felt the smile lines on his face deepen. Artemis must have written it when he was about ten.

Butler put his hand on the window sill, his gaze falling on the pond. Myles and Beckett. Artemis and Juliet.

It would all be okay, in the end. It had to be. Butler let his hand fall from the sill. Sitting back down tiredly, he opened the book to where he had left it.


End file.
